An Android Central forum member was lucky enough to receive the Android 4.0.4 OTA update on his Verizon Galaxy Nexus before anyone else. The update has since been extracted and made available for everyone else to download and install. As you may know, the Galaxy Nexus was still running on Android 4.0.2, which had a couple of issues and was also lacking a few things that were added in...

Microsoft could unveil a stand-alone Skype application for Windows Phone as soon as this month's Mobile Phone Congress, and Skype is expected to be standard on the mobile operating system when the company launches Windows Phone 8.

Skype was acquired by Microsoft in 2011 and a Skype client for Windows Phone had been promised by the end of last year. So far, Microsoft and its Skype unit have been quiet about the integration, but the Verge is reporting that company employees can now download a test version of Skype from the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Meanwhile, an internal Microsoft video that had been intended for executives at Nokia, is fueling more speculation about what features will be added to Windows Phone 8. Known by the codename Apollo, Windows Phone 8 is expected to be released sometime after the release of the Tango operating system, which is also expected at the Mobile Phone Congress.

Sponsor

The video, obtained by the smartphone review site PocketNow, will have better integration with Microsoft desktop clients which should allow developers to reuse much of their code. While Windows Phone has been mostly lauded by crtics, a chief complaint has been a lack of apps.

Windows Phone 8 is also being upgraded to work on a wider range of hardware, and will include support for NFC radios.

Microsoft also said it expects 100,000 apps to be available for Windows Phone by the time Apollo is launched, which is currently rumored to be sometime in the fourth quarter.

"Overall, we're looking at a lot of changes and additions here, all of which seem designed to either bring Windows Phone in line with other platforms, feature-wise, or make it more closely identical to the desktop version of Windows," Evan Blass wrote on PocketNow. "It's probably safe to say that the jump from Mango/Tango to Apollo will be nearly as significant as the transition from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone, and this preview certainly gives us a lot to look forward to."

Discuss

Create an iTunes playlist: make the perfect mix

There are several ways that you can browse your music library in iTunes. Its grid and Cover Flow views are really great for picking out an album by its artwork, and you can play an individual track within seconds of it springing to mind, just by typing in the search bar.

But sometimes you'll want to kick back with a tailored selection of songs, or create a playlist for a party. iTunes caters for this with several kinds of playlist.

Each type is differently suited to the effort you want to invest and how finickety you happen to be feeling.

The most basic type of playlist is nothing more than a place to gather songs from your whole library and play them in whatever order you choose.

With Smart Playlists, instead of hand-picking every single song, you can specify criteria that inspects information attached to your songs, such as the artist and year of publication. iTunes also records dynamic information, such as the number of times you've played a song and how many times you've skipped it.

iTunes does the hard graft of working out what matches your criteria, which it does in next to no time even if your library contains thousands of songs.

Several Smart Playlists are automatically provided to serve common purposes. One shows your highest-rated songs, while another shows recent additions to your library. You might want to create a list just to show dance music from the 1990s only, or songs by particular artists that you haven't listened to in the last six months.

For a Genius Playlist, you only need to pick one track from your library to generate a selection of up to 100 songs. This requires the Genius feature to be on (Store > Turn On Genius), so that iTunes can periodically provide Apple with information about your songs and listening habits.

Apple analyses information from many people around the world and cross-references with your library to pick out songs that it thinks are complementary to the single song you've chosen.

How to create perfect iTunes playlists

1. Build a playlist

Choose File > New Playlist or click the + at the bottom-left of iTunes' window to create a playlist. Name it and press Return. Click Music in the left pane and drag songs from your library onto the playlist's name. Hold Command to select multiple tracks to add in one drag.

2. Change the order

Click your playlist. Tracks play in the order they were added. Drag them up and down the list to change that. Click the second icon at the bottom-left to turn on shuffle. The third repeats the playlist or song indefinitely. Playlists individually retain these settings.

3. Get smart

Smart Playlists have a cog to the left of their name in the left pane. Hold Ctrl and click one of the pre-defined ones that comes with iTunes and choose Edit Smart Playlist. From the same menu, use Duplicate to adapt an existing Smart Playlist.

4. Make the rules

Choose File > New Smart Playlist to start from scratch. Click the + button to add rules to be additionally matched. Hold Option and the + will change to '…', which adds a group of conditions. You can set it to match any of the rules within.

5. Tidy up

File > New Playlist Folder organises playlists. Drag a playlist onto a folder to put it inside. Folders can contain other folders. To move a playlist to the top level, drag it over a playlist at that level, then left of its icon. Let go when the blue highlight disappears.

6. Speedy creation

Make sure Genius is on and up to date (Store > Update Genius). Next, hold down Ctrl and click a song in your library. Choose Start Genius to create a Genius Playlist. At the top-right, you can choose how many tracks it contains.

7. Saving genius

Press Save Playlist at the top-right so you can revisit this playlist later. A Genius Playlist remains the same until you select one and press Refresh at the top-right. To avoid losing content, press Command+A to select and choose File > New Playlist from Selection.

8. Listen on the go

Playlists can help transfer music to an iPod or iOS device if it can't hold everything. Connect your device, select it on the left, then click Music at the top of the right pane. Under Playlists, put a tick next to any playlists you want to take with you.

Image Courtesy Lenovo

With things like the hard drive supply crunch still dragging on from last year, it is very difficult to find many great deals on low cost laptops right now. Thankfully, there are still a few good deals to be found including a Lenovo ThinkPad Z575 from NewEgg for just $430. This laptop comes equipped with the AMD A6-3400M quad core processor, 4GB DDR3 memory, 500GB hard drive, dual layer DVD burner, 15-inch display, Radeon HD 6520G graphics, 802.11b/g/n wireless and Windows 7 Home Premium. While it doesn't come with the new USB 3.0, it does feature an eSATA port for high speed external storage support.

Disclaimer: All deals are those advertised by the retailer in question and may have rebates or other conditions of purchase for the products. Please be sure to read all disclaimers from the seller before purchasing.

Say 'bye bye to Symbian' is essentially the message coming from Nokia as it looks to bring about the end of its legacy platform sooner than many expected. Despite talks of Symbian Carla and even Symbian Donna in the works for current and new devices alike, it now appears that the successor to the Nokia N8 might be the last new Symbian device we shall see from the Finns. Nokia had...

Richard MacManus explores the characteristics of great user experience design. Alicia Eler explains what Pinterest is doing that Facebook should emulate. David Strom notes the decline of corporate blogging. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

Sponsor

5 Signs of a Great User Experience

Great user experience is the result of thoughtful design. Richard explores 5 signs of great user experience, including examples from Path, Pinterest, Rdio and Fitbit. While he explains that great user experience isn't the deciding factor for success, it plays an important role and just may help a company gain initial attention and widespread adoption.

What Pinterest is Doing That Facebook Isn't

News of Facebook's IPO had many tongues wagging this week, but Alicia Eler focused on something Pinterest is doing that Facebook isn't: impacting purchases. While Facebook has tried to make social commerce work, Pinterest is delivering traffic that results in sales. Facebook conflates the social graph with the interest graph, and Alicia says that's a mistake.

Blogging Declines Across the Inc. 500

A new study indicates the number of corporate blogs amongst the Inc. 500 has significantly dropped in the past year. Conversely, the number has stayed virtually the same for the Fortune 500. Instead, of blogging, the Inc. 500 seems to be focusing on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

From the comments:

Lorne Pike - "I can't help but feel that any conclusions being drawn about blogging having peaked because of one year's change are very premature. We know the Inc. 500 is a volatile and ever-changing group of companies. Many of the names on the list will change from one year to the next. How many of the companies that at first glance seem to have "stopped" blogging simply weren't on the list last year?

The chart also shows that just a year ago we saw a considerable rise. Should we have concluded from that that the best days for blogging were still ahead? Blogging has many benefits, as do the other channels shown. To me, while it may be an early sign of things to come, the numbers shown here are hardly a sign that blogging is dead or dying or even has a slight cold. It's just changing, like marketing always has and always will."

More Top Posts:

Amazon S3 Reports Staggering Growth in 2011

Amazon Web Services just reported jaw-dropping growth in the number of objects stored in Amazon S3 year over year.

"As of the end of 2011, there are 762 billion (762,000,000,000) objects in Amazon S3. We process over 500,000 requests per second for these objects at peak times," AWS Evangelist Jeff Bar wrote on the company's blog tonight. The company reported 262 billion objects in storage in Q4 of 2010. More

Anti-Patterns for Technical Leaders

What's the difference between a CTO and a vice-president of engineering (VPoE)? According to Jason Hoffman and Bryan Cantrill of Joyent, the lines are blurry. At the Monki Gras conference in London on February 1st, Hoffman (CTO) and Cantrill (VPoE), shared the stage and talked about the differences in their roles. More

How To Pimp Your LinkedIn Profile

I like using Twitter. I tolerate Facebook because I have to. And I'm on Google+ because everyone says I should be.

So that has left little time to give love to my profile on LinkedIn, which is, depending on how you look at it, either the biggest niche social network or the smallest of the big, all-encompassing social networks. Some people will tell you that sooner or later, all of our networking, social and professional, will be centrally located on Facebook. More

Red Hat Quietly Joins the OpenStack Effort

Word is that Red Hat refused to sign on to OpenStack when it was announced, because it didn't like the governance model. Red Hat also has its own cloud management software projects. But the company that once dismissed OpenStack seems to be coming around. Look closely at the OpenStack community and you'll find quite a few Red Hat engineers, including some that have become core contributors to OpenStack projects. More

How Lanyrd Uses HTML5 for a Great Mobile Web App

When it comes to HTML5 mobile Web app development, a lot of developers are waiting for a blue print of success to follow before jumping into the deep end. Sure, HTML5 mobile Web apps have the potential to change the entire mobile app ecosystem, but right now native apps are a tried and true channel that developers have come to trust. It will take several prominent and successful HTML5 mobile Web apps before the rest of the ecosystem jumps on the bandwagon. More

[Infographic] Google Apps Has Some Big Paying Clients

SaaS backup provider Backupify has recently examined its own customer sample to do some demographic profiling of Google Apps users. The results are somewhat intriguing, as you can see in the infographic below. If you remove .edu domains, Google Apps still has nearly 40% of all of its seats used by businesses with more than 10,000 employees. The company surveyed their customers who have at least 30 users. More

Twitter Upgrades Will Include Analytical Tools

Twitter will unveil a series of new tools in the next few months, including sophisticated analytical tools, according to Erica Anderson, Twitter's manager for news and journalism.

Anderson said the analytical tools will better help publishers track the reach of tweets sent through the microblogging service. She made her comments Saturday at Columbia University's social media weekend in New York. More

ReadWriteWeb Channels

Enterprise

How Social Sharing Changes What You Drink 3 Ways Social Media Can Put Enterprises at Risk Pentaho Opens Up Its Big Data Tools

Mobile

[Study] Android Fragmentation Not as Bad as You Think PhoneGap Build Support Comes to Version 1.4.0 Forrester Ranks Mobile Marketing Companies, Ignores the Brightest Startups

Cloud

Follow ReadWriteCloud on Twitter and join the ReadWriteCloud LinkedIn Group.

Amazon S3 Reports Staggering Growth in 2011 Red Hat Quietly Joins the OpenStack Effort HP Cloud Services Goes Into Beta

Hack

Follow ReadWriteHack on Twitter.

Netflix' Daniel Jacobson: Letting APIs Change Everything Google Releases Rosetta Stone for Dart to JavaScript Lanyrd's Simon Willison on Today's Web Stack

ReadWriteWeb Community

You can find ReadWriteWeb in many places on the web, a few of which are below.

ReadWriteWeb on Facebook ReadWriteWeb on Twitter Google+ ReadWriteWeb on LinkedIn Subscribe to the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up

Want to have this wrap up delivered to you automagically? You can subscribe to the Weekly Wrap-up by RSS or by email.

Discuss

A while ago, I posted about one of the classic blunders in response to online criticism: deleting negative comments.

Let's add another mistake to that list: silence.

I'm not sure there's a force on earth that could have saved Susan G. Komen for the Cure from the social media firestorm that engulfed the organization this week. But lord knows their communications strategy didn't do them a lot of favors - starting with their initial silence.

Sponsor

Whether the rationale is "Let's hope it blows over" or "We can't get internal consensus on a message, so let's not say anything" or "Legal suggests we shut up", silence does nothing to stop an online juggernaut from building. All it does is reinforce the impression of an organization's critics that it's out of touch with their concerns.

Back when the main communication vehicles were things like ads and news media, you could often take a good long time before pushing out a news release or sending a spokesperson out for a scrum. Not any more.

Two things can help if you find yourself in the Komen situation - especially if you need some time to gather the facts, reflect on your position and decide on your next move.

First, a crisis communication plan. Thinking about possible scenarios and developing a strategy for each one - including who responds, how and in what channel - means you don't have to do that thinking when your fight-or-flight mechanism is competing with your higher reasoning functions for attention.

And second, an honest temporizing response. Replying to people that you understand how important the issue is to them, and promising them a more complete response within a few hours or days, and then delivering on that promise with a sincere and direct reply, can give you and your colleagues the time to move beyond a reactive, defensive response to a more effective one.

What won't work is wishful thinking. Planning based on the assumption that nobody will notice what you've done - or that when they do, they'll give you the benefit of the doubt - is some of the best fuel a firestorm could ask for.

Find more fuel for your next social media firestorm at the complete Noise to Signal cartoon archive.

Discuss

Sony Ericsson and the extreme sports brand Billabong have entered into a partnership, which will bring the Xperia smartphones closer to the adrenaline junkies, who are fans of the popular Australian clothing and gear company. The first product of the partnership is the Sony Ericsson Xperia active Billabong edition. There is no difference between the newcomer and the tough as nails,...

Samsung brings a mid-range Galaxy-class device to MetroPCS's network in the Attain 4G. This simpler smartphone packs some surprises, along with some disappointments.

Court documents reveal that Motorola is seeking 2.25% of Apple's iPhone sales in order to license the standards-essential patents that Motorola holds. That percentage amounts to about $15 per iPhone (unsubsidized iPhone 4S 16GB). Motorola and Apple are amidst a patent battle in German courts, and the document came to light as part of this week's proceedings in those cases. At issues is whether or not Motorola's terms represent a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) offer. Apple argues that the terms are not fair. Motorola has won two decisions against Apple, one in December and one on February 3. The first pertains to smartphone patents, while the second pertains to Apple's iCloud service and email syncing patents.